Bigger Fish To Fry (Meaning & Origin!)

If someone has “bigger fish to fry”, it means that they have more important things they need to be attending to. It may be used when someone has been asked to do something they don’t have time to do—because they have “bigger fish to fry”. It’s about priority and what you’ll deal with first.

This is a very common idiomatic expression in English across the world, and is likely to be understood whether you’re in the U.S., Britain, Australia or many other countries.

It has a storied history and fascinating origin, so let’s find out more.

What does “bigger fish to fry” mean?

To have “bigger fish to fry” simply means that you have something more important to attend to.

This might be a very immediate sense, in that you can’t get to one thing at the moment because you have to attend to another, more important thing—a “bigger fish”.

On the other hand, it might be a more general, long-term statement about how you won’t or can’t do something at all because you have more important things to do.

It’s a fairly versatile expression in that sense.

It is perhaps more commonly used today in the latter sense.

People are more likely to say it in the sense of “I won’t ever be able to do that because I have bigger fish to fry”.

Take, for example, job offers or job opportunities that people are trying to encourage you towards.

“Why don’t you take the job with the supermarket?”

“I can’t, I’ve got bigger fish to fry at the insurance company.”

The implication is that one thing is far less important, and will never be important enough to attend to.

Of course, both senses are very much still used.

Another way someone might use the expression is in a more immediate sense.

“Can you help me fix my car tomorrow?”

“Sorry, I’ve got bigger fish to fry, the roof’s leaking. I’ll come round next week,” for example.

It can also just mean having a higher-valued target or result that you want to get at.

“Should we try and close the deal with the Smith company?”

“We’ve got bigger fish to fry with the bank,” for example. It’s about prioritizing targets.

Where in the English-speaking world is this expression used, then?

Where is “bigger fish to fry” used?

As far as we can tell, this phrase is predominantly used in England and in Britain more generally.

It was certainly British in origin, but we’ll get to that shortly.

The phrase is still used across Britain today and is perfectly well understood by just about anyone in the country.

Again, England is where it’s most used, but you’d have to go a long way in Britain to find someone who didn’t understand what the expression meant.

That said, it is certainly used a lot more broadly than just in England.

In the States and in Canada it’s also widely used and widely understood.

Again, few in North America who speak English would struggle to understand what this phrase meant.

It’s very common in entertainment and literature across the English-speaking world.

Unsurprisingly, then, it’s also very common in places like Australia and New Zealand.

Again, while it might not be as idiomatically common, it’s still going to be more or less universally understood.

Thanks to the proliferation of English-speaking media, common idioms like this are pretty well known even outside the English-speaking world.

Where did this one come from originally, then?

Where does “bigger fish to fry” come from?

As I mentioned, this phrase is in fact English in origin—and it’s quite old.

Originally, the phrase was “other fish to fry”, and our first written record of it comes from an English writer named John Evelyn who included the phrase in his Memoirs of 1660.

So, we can expect that the vernacular use of this expression goes back far beyond that into an even earlier period. It’s not impossible that Evelyn coined it himself, though.

Later, it was used in translations of the monumental novel Don Quixote.

Though originally in Spanish, English translators found the expression a valid interpretation of Cervantes’ Spanish words.

It was also recorded in the early 18^th Century by Peter Moteuix.

Again, here, it was “other fish to fry”. So, when the phrase changed from “other” to “bigger” is not really known.

Is “bigger fish to fry” a metaphor?

The expression “bigger fish to fry” is certainly a metaphor. It’s not one to be taken literally.

That said, it almost certainly originally arose out of some tradition of fish frying.

Some theorize it could have related to the time sensitivity of cooking different kinds of fish, and how you couldn’t fry one fish because you had a “bigger” or “other” one to fry more urgently.

In any case, today, the phrase is entirely metaphorical.

You wouldn’t use the expression to talk about literally frying fish.

You could, of course, as a tongue-in-cheek joke if you were literally in the process of frying fish.

Like most idiomatic expressions, though, this one is generally not to be taken literally.

It’s a fairly simple expression as far as its meaning goes, then.

It’s just about urgency and how you don’t have time to deal with something right now as there’s something more pressing happening.

It’s a really old phrase, too, and so it’s no surprise that it has spread far and wide in the English-speaking world.

More in Phrase Meanings

• As Thick As Thieves
• As Thick As Two Short Planks
• Bigger Fish To Fry
• Bob’s Your Uncle
• By The Skin Of Your Teeth
• Dressed To The Nines
• The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword